EPISODE 926: CAT LADIES, COMIC BOOK STANS AND GREEK SMURFS
Also, This is Why I Divorced You, Bob.
Hi and welcome to Pop Culture Spirit Wow, the newsletter for cat ladies, comic book stans, Greek Smurfs, and always, always, Celine Dion. Let’s jump right in.
THE WOWND UP
After a tumultuous month, President Joe Biden removed himself from the presidential race, allowing the country to simply be grateful for the great work he’s done. Meanwhile absolutely no one thought my idea for the Democrats to take their time with anointing a replacement—hey, I spent 30 years in religious life, what do I know—and now people my age and older are suddenly being inundated with seemingly random phrases like “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” and “Kamala IS Brat.” My friend and Queen Molly Cahill has worked up a lingo explainer over at America. Definitely worth a read.
In Europe the Paris Olympics opened on Friday. Wow did they.
That’s a literal description.
For most people the opening was a glorious (and occasionally weird) expression of our shared humanity. For a few they were an attack on Jesus. *sigh* (We’ll get into it.)
And in San Diego, 130,000 people learned moments before the rest of us that Robert Downey, Jr. is returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Fantastic Four uber-villain Doctor Doom. “New mask, same task,” he said. Also if you had that on your pop culture Mad Libs bingo that Harrison Ford would be playing a new, red Hulk, congratulations.
WHEN PAPA SMURF GOT ME ACTUALLY-TRIGGERED
I honestly don’t even know what to report about this. As part of the opening ceremonies, a bunch of fabulous drag queens gathered at a table, the one in the center wearing an golden oval around her head. At one point there were around 12 of them, then their numbers grew. A dish was brought in, within which was a blue naked man who is supposed to be Dionysius, one of the Greek gods.
So you have a meal at a table, with at one point about a dozen in view, the central person wearing something that kind of looks like, I don’t know, could we call it a halo? And the food is a god.
Yeah, some of the Catholics were not happy with that. If you follow any priests or religious people and suddenly their cover photo is the Last Supper, this is why.
Since then the artistic director has said in fact his inspiration was a Greek bacchanal, this being the Olympics and everything. So now there’s an enormous counter backlash of people @-ing anyone who commented on it being the Last Supper, he says, having had to silence notifications on a post about the moment after 3000 friends who apparently refuse to read each other’s comments spent their Sunday Actually-ing and meme-splaining him.
It seems pretty clear that moment was in part playing with Catholic imagery—and I would say in a playful way. This is drag, honey; it’s all about a fun and celebration.
THIS IS YOUR WEEKLY REMINDER THAT DEADPOOL VS. WOLVERINE IS TREMENDOUS
This weekend I saw a 9:30pm show of Deadpool vs. Wolverine, Marvel’s only movie this entire year, and the end of 20th Century Fox’s decades of work with Marvel characters. I went in expecting to be entertained, very entertained, and yet it surpassed even that. I’m not saying this is an Oscar movie, I’m not saying bring a tissue, this is still the story of a guy in a spandex suit who loves to stab things and make very dirty jokes, but it is a wonderful way to spend two hours, the first Marvel film in a very long time where it felt like you could just sit back and enjoy it.
Watching it actually made me realize the degree to which the ongoing story element of the MCU has created drag on the audience experience. In a typical MCU movie today everything has the potential to be Big Picture Something™. And as a result it’s hard to fully immerse in the story. There’s a part of our minds that have been taught to keep the films at a slight distance so that we can consider those possibilities.
This film has its inside jokes about everything from Ryan Reynolds’ wife to Marvel’s ownership by Disney, but it has absolutely no connection to the larger Marvel universe or continuity. And so finally, for the first time in forever, we just get sit back and enjoy.
I have a lot more to say about Deadpool vs. Wolverine, is not a sentence I would have thought I would ever write. But I really do. Subscribers can look forward to that later this week.
WAIT, AM I A VENOM FAN NOW?
During the many, many, many previews before DvW, there was a trailer for the third and final Venom film. I have never had a single moment’s desire to watch a Venom film. There’s something about that creature that absolutely repels me. Also I think it breaks some kind of fundamental law of good super hero storytelling. I don’t know what that law is, I just think that. (Ha)
But the end of the first minute of this trailer has me questioning everything. It’s really funny.
I think my problem with Venom is that his suit/partner is a Bloupus. Yes, that’s a made up word, and that’s my point. The suit is basically anything they want it to be. It’s an alien symbiote that you wear, but also once you’re wearing it somehow your body disappears and it can eat people whole without that having any impact on you, except then there are these moments where the symbiote rolls back and there’s the human’s face, like you’re sort of riding in it underneath. And then there are all kinds of powers you get, and the largest teeth. It just doesn’t make any sense.
And yet I can’t stop watching this trailer. The Major Tom segment is also just killer.
MAY A CLOUD OF GEN Z NERDS SURROUND HER
It’s very early days in the Harris campaign, but immediately one of the things that’s emerging is that Harris’ awkwardness is actually generally endearing to people. She unintentionally does a lot of things that are immediately meme-worthy, but in a way that delights people. She’s basically like America’s mom—a role previously held by Michelle Obama, but where Michelle was all Gay style and encouragement Mom, Kamala is your working mom who is very good at her job but is still figuring out how to do an Instagram story. And her special fans seem to be Gen Zers, who are stanning her hard.
Among the fun things you can find right now: a website where you can name any album, and it will generate a photo Kamala holding it—a while back she visited a record store during Small Business Week and then showed the press what she bought. I just made this one for you and it makes me very happy.
There’s lots of videos of her dancing.
…and coconut-related memes. (See Cahill above for an explanation of that reference.)
And then there’s this.
Here’s one video of her being interviewed by kids from when she was running for president four years ago. I’ve got to say, it’s a high wire act of fabulous.
MOMENT OF WOW
You’ve probably already seen it, but this is absolutely is this week’s moment of wow, followed closely so many other wonderful moments of the Opening Ceremonies.
[NBC has disabled a preview of the video, because ideally they want you to buy it *sigh*. But if you double click on the image it’ll take you to it.]
If you’re interested, the song, L’Hymne à l’amour (“The Hymn to Love”) was written by Edith Piaf as a love letter to the love of her life, Marcel Cerdan, who was killed in plane crash in 1949 on the way to come see Piaf.
I’ll be back later this week with Deadpool vs. Wolverine, and Heather Headley!
Have a great week!
OK, so this episode had me smiling and laughing, quite a bit...which was wonderful. Then you had to hit me with Kids interviewing Kamala, which was outstanding, and showed how she speaks to them on their level and who she is as a person, and as a stepmother, which brought tears to my eyes, which as you know is a very rare thing for me. ;-) Thankfully you followed that up with "ze greatest singer in ze world" as Ana Gasteyer as Celine would say, which I'm happy to say brought another smile to my face, and then weep with joy. Why must you do this to me? Great job, Jim!!